Cole McCade

This second episode is not as gruesome as the first one was, though McCade is adept at giving us compelling characters, even the nasty ones.

And while there's a murder to solve, our intrepid author also drops bits and pieces of backgrounds, past traumas, future trouble, all while this slowest of slow burns continues to smoke and smolder and spit the occasional handful of sparks.

I thought I wouldn't finish the ARC before my purchased copy arrived after midnight -- but I could not stop show more reading. Yes, you want to read these. show less

Criminal Intentions season one's closing episode is a heady rush, everything crashing and crackling in violence and danger and shifting targets in a co-current headlong race to survive. If you haven't started this season yet, what a wild ride awaits you, all hairpin turns and screeching stomach-lurching drops and intense, heartbreaking beauty. You'll not be disappointed. Terrified, but not disappointed. And next season promises to be even better. I cannot wait.

EDIT: So... I delayed reading show more the preview for next season.

Gulp.

After that, a fun, silly Q&A with the author, and then one of the sweetest acknowledgements I've ever read. Don't miss these. show less

Summer Hemlock returns to his hometown and his high school to take a job working for Fox Iseya, a teacher he had a crush on as a teenager. There's definitely chemistry between them now, but Summer has to learn who Fox really is (rather than who Summer thought he was when he was eighteen), and Fox must learn to get past the grief of losing his wife.

I really enjoyed this romance novel--the characters were intriguing and the shifting power dynamics between the heroes was fascinating. I also show more liked the portrayal of Summer's anxiety on the page. Things may have gotten just a tiny bit over dramatic in the end, but mostly I was enjoying myself while a little sliver of my brain was going "really?" in the background. I'll be picking up more by McCade. show less

The first novel in a while I couldn't put down. Cole McCade has a gift for engaging and gripping crime fiction focused on the lives and struggles of queer masculinity under pressure. Malcolm Khalaji and Yoon Seong-Jae are both excellently crafted detectives, forced to work together to uncover a murder conspiracy in collegiate Baltimore. The length, combined with the chapters all being short but impactful, made this a breeze, and the recurring cast of characters surrounding the case all felt show more human. Cole's afterword about writing stories about cops that care about the humanity inside them and not shying away from what queer men go through just for existing was touching. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but the mixture of crime thriller, light queer romance, and body horror will be highly inspirational on my own writing. Will definitely be picking up the rest of this series! show less